The Phadampa Center website (a group based in California) claims that Padampa Sangye *was* Bodhidharma, that is, the person known as Bodhidharma was Dampa Jakar while teaching in China. (Evidently, he did teach in China.)

I find this claim unconvincing because the chronology seems off... Bodhidharma was appealed to as an authority in China at least a century before Padampa Sangye was said to have visited China.

Thoughts?

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Why not say that Bodhidharma was later known as Padmasambhava and then Padamba Sangye? Or Luke Skywalker for that matter. Why not?

But if we want to go with the known facts, Bodhidharma lived hundreds of years before that mahasiddha, he is supposed to have taught some Lankavatara Sutra teachings, practically Bodhidharma's whole life is a legend created centuries later and there is no definitive information of who Bodhidharma was (if he was at all).

"There is no such thing as the real mind. Ridding yourself of delusion: that's the real mind."(Sheng-yen: Getting the Buddha Mind, p 73)

Jikan wrote:Well, you've never seen them photographed together, right?

The Phadampa Center website (a group based in California) claims that Padampa Sangye *was* Bodhidharma, that is, the person known as Bodhidharma was Dampa Jakar while teaching in China. (Evidently, he did teach in China.)

I find this claim unconvincing because the chronology seems off... Bodhidharma was appealed to as an authority in China at least a century before Padampa Sangye was said to have visited China.

Thoughts?

This is clearly a Tibetan sectarian polemical hagiographical statement. It is not to be taken seriously. Just as the person of Bodhidharma was wildly inflated by the Chinese, so too has the person of Padampa been wildly inflated by Tibetans.

"All the sublime teachings, so profound--to throw away one and then grab yet another will not bear even a single fruit. Persevere, therefore, in simply one."--Dudjom Rinpoche, "Nectar for the Hearts of Fortunate Disciples. Song No. 8"